- When Paris was elementary school,
junior high, she had a really good friend,
you know, besties, Paris was kind of the troublemaker
in the two of them, the spunky one.
And then this little girl gets diagnosed with leukemia.
She was in our life, and she was going
through treatments, and came out of remission,
er, went into remission, and things were going great,
and it was freshman year of high school
or the end of junior high, she relapsed again
and it just was brutal and they were doing
bone marrow transplants, and they found the donor
and she sort of came back but...
And Paris was learning to pray and
really believe God for a miracle in her friend,
but then she just kept getting sicker
and sicker and Paris was in the hospital with her
taking her on wheelies down the aisles.
Then we get the call that no parent wants to give or get,
that her friend passed away
as a 14 year old, 15 year old.
Paris was devastated, I mean, it was just...
We'd never dealt with something like this.
From that, it's interesting, now looking back
I can see it was from that moment
that my daughter, she's trying to process this
and she's angry at God and, "Why?
"I prayed," and I'm having as the parent
to answer some of those questions
about trusting God anyway, and we don't win
every battle but we do win the war.
You know, all the stuff that we would say.
But as a parent I started watching my daughter,
I think that was the trigger, when I look back,
making some decisions that weren't great.
It's as if she felt like she had to
get as much life in, right?
She had to do as much as she could
because who knew what would happen.
I remember, so she's now 17 a few years down the road,
and just, some of the decisions are not great
and 18, I remember going in my little office
and shutting the door and falling on my knees
and just praying for her, as we do for our kids,
and just praying God, and this is when
I felt the Spirit of God say to me,
"Will you trust me with her?"
(affirming)
- Yeah.
- [Nicole] Had to get the tissue out on that one.
(laughing)
- He's just like, "Will you trust me with her?"
To me, that let me know that we weren't done yet.
That there was gonna be some stuff.
And then even, you know, fast forward some years
then she starts dating this guy who,
now, she's told some of this, so you know,
I can tell it, but-- - It's okay.
You won't get in trouble.
- Well, I might still, but anyway.
(laughing)
She starts dating this guy who's not great for her,
and is not, and he put on a good show but--
- You knew.
- I knew.
So then she just kind of pushes it
and decides to get married, and then we have
this wedding, and I know this is not...
But again, I think it's in her, it was this need
to "Okay, I gotta get married early,
"because you just don't"--
- Yeah.
- There's just like all of that in her.
So then, within six months there was abuse,
I mean it just gets very not good.
And then it ends.
And again, I am praying for my daughter,
and God's saying, "Will you trust me with her?"
I'm like, ohh.
And then when this was all happening
was also when Philip and I, Philip gets diagnosed
with cancer-- - Wow.
- Our savings account gets stolen, which I've already
told on here, so it's like, all that,
and my daughter's in that really challenging
marriage situation and then all the battles
are coming at us, and I just remember thinking
I got nothin'.
It's just like, how do I...
You know, "Count it all joy,"
that's what the Bible says.
- Right, right.
- Yeah.
- It's like, how do I do that?
How do I do that when it feels like
I couldn't get a win?
- Yeah, yeah.
- There's so much coming at you,
the betrayals from people and fightin'
for Philip's health and speakin' life over him,
and I just, I felt like God, you know,
they say that you're not given more
than you can handle, like, God,
you think a lot of me because it challenged me
in a couple things.
So when I think about counting it all joy,
there was ha ha in here.
We brought this jar into our kitchen
and we called it our gratitude jar.
And every day we would write on a piece of paper
something we're grateful for.
- Oh, good. - Wow.
- For days I would go in that kitchen.
Philip brought the jar because he's the Christian, right?
(laughing)
And I know that he's gonna look
to see if I put a piece in there,
and so for days all I could write on there
was coffee.
(laughing)
- You're grateful for coffee!
- Well, aren't you?
- Yes, I am!
- Were you grateful this morning?
- I was grateful for my coffee.
- So that's, you just have to start somewhere.
I was grateful for coffee, and then,
then I was grateful for my home,
and then my health, and then freedom.
Then my daughter's future, so then it became...
But for me, that's how I got out of it.
- Mhm, yeah.
- It's just like, when the battle was raging,
and it was raging, so fighting for my daughter
and my husband and dealing with people
who betrayed, all the stuff that was going on.
The only way that I could find my feet
and trust God through this was to be grateful
for what He has done, and be grateful
for who He is, right?
Grateful that I am forgiven, and whatever it would be
I just put stuff on there.
I don't know how you deal with it
when there's stuff that comes at you,
but that was it for me.
To this day, it still, you trust God with your family.
You have to trust God with them.
Now, fast forward she's married to a great guy,
have a grandchild, who is my favorite human.
Amazing.
But, man.
There were moments in there when I didn't see
the end of it, or I didn't see what was coming.
- But that's the beauty in this whole faith walk.
- Hi everybody, I hope you enjoyed this video.
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